Hong Kong shares fall sharply as tech shares plunge

Reuters Staff

3 Min Read

Nov 30 (Reuters) - Hong Kong shares ended Thursday lower, dragged by tech shares and reflecting fears in the region that the boom in demand for electronic components has peaked.

** At the close of trade, the Hang Seng index was down 446.48 points or 1.51 percent at 29,177.35. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index fell 1.48 percent to 11,475.72. **The sub-index of the Hang Seng that tracks energy shares dipped 1.1 percent while the IT sector dipped 3.19 percent, the financial sector was 1.49 percent lower and property sector dipped 0.12 percent. ** The top gainer on Hang Seng was Bank of East Asia Ltd , up 1.79 percent, while the biggest loser was AAC Technologies Holdings Inc which was down 5.70 percent. ** China’s main Shanghai Composite index closed down 0.61 percent at 3,317.577 points while its blue-chip CSI300 index ended down 1.16 percent. ** Around the region, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index was weaker by 1.44 percent while Japan’s Nikkei index closed up 0.57 percent. ** The yuan was quoted at 6.6085 per U.S. dollar at 08:14 GMT, 0.17 percent firmer than the previous close of 6.62. ** So far this year, the Hang Seng index is up 34.65 percent, while China’s H-share index is up 24.0 percent. The Hang Seng has risen 4.88 percent this month. ** The top gainers among H-shares were China Railway Construction Corp Ltd up 2.21 percent, followed by China Citic Bank Corp Ltd gaining 0.6 percent and China Communications Construction Co Ltd up by 0.57 percent. ** The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were China Vanke Co Ltd which was down 4.02 percent, China Pacific Insurance Group Co Ltd which fell 4.0 percent and New China Life Insurance Co Ltd down by 3.6 percent. ** About 2.51 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded, roughly 130.2 percent of the market’s 30-day moving average of 1.93 billion shares a day. The volume traded in the previous trading session was 1.48 billion. ** At close, China’s A-shares were trading at a premium of 31.50 percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares. ** The price-to-earnings ratio of the Hang Seng index was 13.56 as of the last full trading day while the dividend yield was 2.9 percent. (Reporting by the Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Sam Holmes)